Sauk Prairie High School solved the problem of students being
absent from school during deer season, even though the solution didn't begin as
a way to give students more days in the woods.
"We
used to have a high number of students who were absent to go hunting during deer
season the three days after opening weekend," said Chris Grinde, assistant
principal at Sauk Prairie.
Grinde explained that the
way the law works is that parents can request that their children be excused
from classes, almost regardless of the reason."If the
parents provide us with a statement in writing, before the absence, parents have
the right to excuse their children for up to ten days," Grinde said. "It can be
for anything, even to catch snowflakes on their tongues."
No one asked their children be excused for that
reason, but a number of parents did ask that children be excused for up to three
days during the gun-deer season."Two years ago we
switched our parent teacher conference schedule and it coincided with gun-deer
season," Grinde said. "We do the conferences Thanksgiving week, so our students
are no longer in school at all that week. Conferences are Monday evening and
Tuesday and Tuesday evening."
This schedule gives
teachers Wednesday off, because they work Monday and Tuesday nights, so they can
make plans to travel for Thanksgiving, or they could go deer hunting,
too.Grinde has been at Sauk Prairie for 26 years and
he knows many students get excited about deer
season.
"It's an exciting time for them and me,"
Grinde said. "They know I'm a deer hunter, too."In
the past, when students were excused during deer season, classes slowed down
because of the high number of absentees. It was difficult to try to get all the
students back to even after Thanksgiving. And students who didn't go hunting
wondered why they should have to come to school while their classmates were off
sitting in the brush.
Having conferences Monday night, Tuesday and Tuesday night has not decreased attendance at those meetings,
either."We still have high numbers of parents coming
in one of those days or nights," Grinde said.
"Our
system, even though it did not start out to be a way to deal with gun-deer
season, worked out that way," Grinde said. "Many of our kids are avid deer
hunters and they started talking about deer and began telling stories in
September. But I'd have to say the number of students who hunt has begun to go
down."
The student population at Sauk Prairie High
School is about 1,000 students.
